Archives for November 2015

How to Set-up Your OWN Online Bookstore

Online-Store

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Excerpt from: 111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free
Most authors point from their website or blog to their book’s sales pages at (hopefully) several online retailers.  And as smart authors, they are in an affiliate program with these large retailers, in order to receive four percent, or more, additional revenue from their own titles. But, why not sell directly from the own website too?
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Once your web presence is perfectly established, you can start to sell your books directly to your readers!  These days, authors can choose from several well-established, inexpensive and easy-to-integrate shopping systems for author websites.
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What are the Benefits for Authors?

  • It drives more traffic to your website.
  • You will receive immediate payments.
  • You will have higher revenues.
  • You will know your readers, which is absolutely not possible when you sell through online retailers

Direct selling means you earn around 85 percent to 95 percent of your retail price, way more than the not even 70 percent you receive from Amazon.  Also, on a 99 cent book, or one that is priced above $9.99, you get nearly double the amount you would receive from Amazon, Kobo, Apple iBooks or Barnes & Noble.
It also helps your readers who live in areas where Amazon requests a surcharge, e.g. in parts of Asia, Africa, Australia and the Middle East, who can directly order from your website.  Last year I purchased a 99-cent book from Germany, which was not available on Amazon.com, only through Amazon.de. In the end, I paid almost US $4.00 for this title.  I certainly was not happy about the outrageous surcharge.
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Increased Website Traffic.
In social media posts, or blog articles, do not set only links to your retailers, but mainly to your own website where you sell your book. This way, more traffic is directed to your website and blog, and you will receive many more visitors, which in turn helps your site’s ranking, which means more visibility… You get the idea. It also helps to build the author platform and brand in shorter time.
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Faster Payments.
You get paid before your customers download your books.  Unlike online book retailers, you do not have to wait until you receive a statement several months after your book was sold.  The money for your books is deposited in your account right away.  You retain control of the sale price without the discounts applied by retailers, or the upper limits some retailers have on the book sales price.
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Who are Your Readers?
If you sell your book solely on Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks etc., you will never know who orders and reads your books, no matter how many are sold.  These are not your customers, but the retailer’s; they won’t let you know any details about your customers.
The only way to maybe get in touch with them is this: ALWAYS include your website, blog, all your social media information, your about.me site, maybe even your e-mail address in your titles. That goes for e-books (in which readers are given a direct link to your sites), and print books.
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Ready-to-go Online Stores.
There are dozens of online stores available, called “e-commerce” stores, “ready-to-go” which can be installed on your existing website or blog relatively easily and quickly.  You need to have your own (hosted) website or blog – a paid version, not a free website!
Almost all e-commerce shops work with PayPal systems for secure and easy payments.  Some e-commerce shops charge a small fee every month. Some are free for small publishers with only a few transactions. 

Check out Shopify’s website to find out how to build your own e-shop. They offer more than seventy international payment gateways. 

Ecwid is free if you have less than ten books in total for sale.

E-Junkie provides a shopping cart and “buy now” buttons to let you sell book downloads. They offer one week trials and their fees start with $5 per month for less than 10 downloads. They also offer lots of features, such as tax and shipping calculators, discount management, affiliate management etc.

The very best option in my opinion is Gumroad. They are specialists in sales items for download, such as e-books, music, software, and so forth. Working with them means there are no hosting fees, monthly fees, bandwidth fees, or refund fees. They charge just 5 percent + 25¢ per transaction.  You install a link on your website for potential customers, and all the transactions go through their website.  However, you will get and keep all of your customer’s data.

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Showcase on Ganxy

Easy-to-use tools for selling and giving away content on Ganxy through a customized separate website. You can learn where and how customers discovered your content—across any website and channel where the Showcase appears. Showcases make your content look professional and consistent everywhere it appears on the Internet.
You can create giveaways, award contest winners, send review copies, distribute copies at conferences, and more. You can even ask promotional customers to provide their contact information to access content, giving you a forum for ongoing contact with your audience. They also offer a free trial. However, this is not your OWN website, it is a borrow and it belongs to this company.  Use it for campaigns and keep your own website too.
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Selz
The installation process with Selz is the same as any other WordPress plugin. You can either download it from the WordPress plugin library or install it directly from the “Add New” option in the plugins area of your WordPress website.
The sign up process for a free account is quite simple and takes only a minute to complete. To start the selling process on your WordPress website, you need to select the type of products or services that you’re offering. It can be anything from digital products like eBooks, images, audio files to physical items. Selz provides several other useful features that really make it a complete ecommerce package: For example, offering a freebie, like an eBook, you can simply mark your product as FREE in the product section.
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Another option is to install your own custom-made online store, if you are an IT / software professional or if you have one (can be virtual, through fiverr.com or elance.com) on hand, to help with the technical aspect.  However, your online shop has to be monitored.  Also, you have to choose a very reliable hosting company, as all downtime on their servers can mean lost sales for you. 

You can even sell “by hand” from your computer: Customers pay with PayPal and you deliver your files for your e-book via email; or you ship your print book via regular mail.  This is the most labor-intensive way, and you are required to deliver almost around the clock; customers expect to receive your e-book immediately after their payment goes through, and a print book within two days.
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Put Your Eggs in Many Baskets.
With all of these fantastic options, you have plenty of reasons to sell your book directly from your website in addition to your sales through online retailers. Put your eggs in several baskets – not just in one! And it is good to have access to your readers, to know who is buying and reading your books, in order to communicate with them and inform them about your next works. It is important for your author website to have a large outreach, which can be addressed in this way:

  • Solid marketing to your target audience
  • Regularly adding lots of content to your website
  • Writing many guest blogs and short stories
  • Linking from everywhere to your sales page

Each of your books should have a search-engine-optimized web page of its own – within your homepage.  This can be an entire web or blog site devoted just to your book, or a page on your website for each one of your books.

Read more tips about e-book sales via your own website, programs, and pros / cons for beginners:

http://www.sellbox.com/pros-cons-8-options-sell-ebooks-direct-website/

https://selz.com/blog/7-steps-create-sell-ebook-website/

http://inkwelleditorial.com/how-to-sell-ebooks-online-as-instant-digital-downloads
http://www.mykeblack.com/blog/ecommerce/vat-for-ecommerce-websites

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SEO: Google+ is the Best Ranking Social Media

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How many readers are finding your book is not only determined by your Amazon ranking, but also by the amount of visitors to your website and blog, and effective search engine results – something that can easily influenced directly by you with minimal effort!

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Key Factors and Ranking Highly in Google’s – and other – Search Engines as shown in the Infographic below:

Some of the Key Findings. 
Matthew Peters, the in-house scientist at SEOMoz listed the ranking factors:

  • Page Authority correlates higher than any other metric.
  • Social signals, especially Google +1s are highly correlated.
  • Anchor text correlations remain as strong as ever.
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Page Authority of Your Blog / Webpage:
It is a score on a 100-point scale, that predicts how well a specific page will rank on search engines, and includes link counts from authoritative web pages, such as from global players, governments or organizations, plus dozens of other factors.
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Blog as a Sub Domain:
A root domain is the top level hierarchy of a domain. For example:
https://www.savvybookwriters.com/
And a sub domain could look like this: https://www.savvybookwriters.com/when-to-schedule-your-holiday-book-marketing/
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Place link-worthy content, such as blogs in sub-folders. Detailed advice when and where to place your blog can be found in “Pros and Cons of Putting a Blog in a Subdirectory / Folder” by Christopher Heng at TheSiteWizard.
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Anchor Text in Your Blogs:
Let’s take a sentence in the last paragraph: And a sub domain could look like this: https://www.savvybookwriters.com/when-to-schedule-your-holiday-book-marketing/. In order to link to this blog article for example, you have to choose a word (anchor) in this sentence to place your link. So what would you choose? Certainly a word that readers will type in when searching on Google, in this case we would use “sub domain” as the anchor.
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Great Keywords in Titles:
Pretty self-explaining that you use the most relevant and reader-attention keywords in your headline. After all you want them to stop and read! It creates value in relevancy, browsing, and in the search engine results pages. Use either the Google Keyword Planner or any of these articles with lots of hints and tips:
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http://writtent.com/blog/7-secrets-to-finding-the-best-keywords/
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/how-readers-can-find-your-book/
http://www.careercast.com/career-news/25-best-keywords-your-job-search
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Being Active on Google+
You can submit each of your blog post to your Google+ account. Google treats the information on its own platforms, aka Google Search Engine, pretty high, which means your SEO-ranking for your website or blog improves dramatically. Your Google+ profile will always be top ranked in a Google search.
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Safe SEO considerations that don’t take up your time… However, there is more to SEO then focusing all your efforts in link building and keyword optimization, for example: making your site mobile-friendly, adding a privacy policy page, social media sharing, “top-list” article writing etc. Get all these tips in a former blog post: “How to Get More Visitors to Your Website or Blog – Part 2”.
and “How to Get More Visitors to Your Website / Blog
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Enduring Search Engine Optimization Rules:

Local Search Ranking Factors 2013

Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.

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Enjoy a Marvellous Thanksgiving

THANKSGIVING

Today’s blog post is neither related to publishing nor to book marketing, it’s a salute to everyone who reads this article, combined with best wishes for a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING, hopefully with family and friends. Have a lovely holiday and an enjoyable long weekend. Please read on:
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History and Meaning of Thanksgiving – then and now:
It all started with REFUGEES (then called colonists), who – like many people getting off a boat – gave thanks for setting foot again on dry land.  Almost all Canadians and Americans are descendants of REFUGEES – their ancestors were coming from war-torn countries, they often were religious refugees or victims of famine.  Another refugee trek happened over land, when United Empire Loyalists were fleeing from the United States during the American Revolution, got refugee status and settled in Canada.
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According to AllAboutHistory:
“The first “Thanksgiving,” was neither a feast nor a holiday, but a simple gathering.  Following the Mayflower’s arrival at Plymouth Rock / MA, on December 11, 1620, the Pilgrims (a protestant sect) suffered the loss of 46 of their original 102 refugees / colonists – just the same as it happened too often during the last years in the mediterranean sea with people who ran from their war-torn countries.
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With the help of 91 Indians, the remaining Pilgrims survived the bitter winter and yielded a bountiful harvest in 1621.  Can you imagine these Native People would not have helped the Europeans and instead would have refused to let them land and settle?
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“In celebration, a traditional English harvest festival, lasting three days brought the Pilgrims and natives to unite in a “thanksgiving” observance. In gratitude, we humbly reflect upon all the gifts (family, friends, health, wealth) that saturate our lives.
By “giving-thanks” we choose to extend ourselves and give to others less fortunate.  Out of the abundance of our hearts, we are able to offer our resources to help others.”
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Think about what THANKSGIVING means:
After all, the NATIVES in North America took the European refugees in and helped the first settlers to survive – before these very settlers stole the Native’s land and dispelled them…
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While we are sitting down for a delicious Turkey meal, let’s remember that war refugees from Syria and their children are begging on the streets in Turkey or the Lebanon for a slice of bread and a bit water, and that the whole family often has to sleep within a 15 sq-ft tent either in one of these refugee camps or on the streets – since the war started, four years ago!

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More than 200,000 People have been Killed.
The Syrian civil war, a horrific conflict that has ravaged the country since 2011, it started with the largely nonviolent protest movement often called the “Arab Spring”.  Since then twelve million Syrians have fled their homes to escape the bloodshed, around four million of whom became refugees by leaving the country and hanging in limbo now in Turkey, Lebanon, Italy and Greece.  The exodus triggered a humanitarian crisis in Europe, where more than a million refugees are expected to flood into the continent by year’s end, 850,000 of those already arrived in tiny boats and via treks through the Balkan, often walking thousands of miles on foot.
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Read here About the Though US Screening Process
The United States could easily take in 3 Million war refugees = only roughly 0,1 % of the US population).  And Canadians: please remember that you took in 35,000 Hungarians who were fleeing their communist country in 1965, and later many boat refugees from Asia. What are 25,000war refugees (ca. 0,014% of the Canadian population), compared to these numbers?
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Why not HELP them?
A huge part of the North American population goes to Church on Sundays, calling themselves Christians.  Why not act like a Christian, and help those who are haunted by the war, have lost family members and their homes and now are begging for your help.
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THANKSGIVING should be a holiday of remembering where one comes from and being THANKFUL for a great life and thinking about how it is possible to help the less fortunate – in these days the war refugees.  Invite a family from abroad to your home for a lovely dinner and show them Western hospitality and friendliness. Imagine to walk in their shoes!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING again and thanks for reading.

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Russell Blake: “How to Sell Loads of Books”

Silver Justice by Russell Blake

Silver Justice by Russell Blake

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Regularly listed in the top 100 (and often top 50) best-selling authors on Amazon, Russell Blake is a thriller writer who has written twenty-eight novels and who has mastered the art of great writing and great sales.
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Short Snippets of his Advice for Fellow Writers:
“Pick one genre that’s popular and with which you are extremely familiar, and then write in that genre. Stick to it. Don’t hop around. It confuses your potential readers and muddies who you are in their minds, and will hurt your sales.  If you want to write different genres, use a pseudonym, and if you like, let your readers know that moniker is you. But stick to one name, one genre, because you are building your brand, and brand building is a function of clarity – clearly communicating what you do, and what your product is.”
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“Write a series. Why? Because readers like series, and you want to give readers what they like. Or you won’t sell as much. You can try stand-alone – I have – but my series outsell my stand-alone books 4 to 1. Once you have at least three books in the series, make the first one free. Earn your income from the rest, but give readers a whole novel to decide whether they like your writing or not.”
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“Write a lot. By that I mean try to write at least three novels a year. Write 60-90K installments in your series, and release them AT MINIMUM every four months. Every three months would be better. Every two, better still. Momentum breeds success, and readers have short memories.”
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RussellBlake Jet

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“Allocate time every day to write, and be disciplined. I suggest a minimum of one hour per day, or 1000 words. I actually ignore that and shoot for 5000-7000 a day when writing a novel, but that’s just my approach, and it’s not for everyone.  If you don’t make it a habit, you will not write enough to put out one novel every four months.”
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More of Russell Blake’s Advice:

  • “Stay off the internet when you’re writing.”
  • “Allocate time every day to market your books.”
  • “Get professional help.”
  • “Know your audience.”
  • “Make sure your cover and product description rocks.”
  • “You have five pages to hook the reader.” The first five. Make those amazing pages that demand the reader continues.”
  • Read a lot. To write well, you need to read things that are well-written.”

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Read all of Russell Blake’s tips and more details in his blog
Featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Times, and The Chicago Tribune, Russell Blake is the USA Today bestselling author of twenty-eight books – and for sure a great role model for other writers.

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LAST STOP: PARIS – Interview with Author John Pearce

Paris

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Thanks a lot John, for taking the time to answer so many questions about your upcoming thriller, which is now up for pre-orders at Amazon, and will launch on December 1st.
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When you published Treasure of Saint-Lazare did you know you would also be publishing the sequel, Last Stop: Paris?

Oh, yes. Of course, I didn’t know at the time it would be titled Last Stop: Paris, but I had a sense of how the story would end — that it would, in fact, be a very final stop. And it became clear when I was only a few chapters into the first book that it was far too broad a story to squeeze it into 80,000 words.

The new one doesn’t take up precisely where Treasure ended. I let some time pass so Eddie’s demons — the murder of his family — could fade. Just as things are getting back to normal for him and Aurélie, when they’re talking about starting a family, past evil roars back in a big way. Even then, Eddie is ambivalent about getting involved, at least until Aurélie is threatened. That’s the point at which he realizes it’s all or nothing, do or die.
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It looks like early reviewers are saying nice things about Last Stop: Paris. How does that feel?

Great! The biggest surprise is the rave I got from Kirkus Reviews, the professional reviewing service that has been the graveyard for many small-press books (and Alesia Press, my publisher, is a very small press).  Kirkus called it “A full-throttle adventure through modern Europe and the Mediterranean in a book that’s part thriller, part mystery and all rollicking ride.” And if that weren’t enough, they finished up by calling it “An exhilarating journey that will satisfy the most avid thriller reader.”  Wow.

The Kirkus review for Treasure of Saint-Lazare was positive (and helped get its ranking to #39 on the all-Kindle best-seller list), but not nearly as positive as the new one.  I hope it brings me a lot of readers, and for a long time.
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Which of your characters is most interesting to you?

That’s a really good question, and a tough one. My own views aside, because by now they all feel like members of the family, Jen — the sort-of-bad girl — was the most commented-on character in Treasure of Saint-Lazare.

This time things seem to have changed. Eddie is the one most early readers like. He’s an interesting guy — full of contradictions, slow to anger but unremitting once his decision is made. He’s confident but at the same time has an abundance of self-doubt.

He was, after all, a Special Forces company commander in Kuwait, and much of the plot of my first two books stems from one brief, brutal incident during that time.

I wanted to create a character who should have everything he could ever want, but whose perfect life is derailed by something over which he has no control, in this case something that was part of his father’s military service sixty years before plus the incident in Kuwait.

He’s rich, but his fortune really doesn’t matter much. He’s loved by the perfect woman, but can’t handle it and spurns her (don’t panic; they rectify that).  He falls into bed with the wrong woman, who turns out to be totally unlike his first image of her, or so he thinks. In other words, he’s like most of us — screwed up, incomplete, unhappy at least some of the time.
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John-Pearce

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How did you get the original idea for the series?

A lot of my ideas come during my daily four-mile walks. The “what if” idea for this one came that way one day, and then I went looking to see if there were a historical hook I could use. That’s when I found Italian Renaissance painter Raphael’s well-known self-portrait, which has been missing since 1945.

Then I found a bunch of interesting characters and put them into difficult positions to see how they worked themselves out.
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Are they based on real people?
I picked up a couple of names from people I know, but otherwise every character in it is totally fictional, or such a broad combination of attributes that they are anonymous. That excludes a few historical public figures, of course. Nobody could create a character worse than Hans Frank, the butcher of Poland who got his start in German politics as Hitler’s personal lawyer. Even his own son thought he was scum — enough so to write a book about it.
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How do you go about researching and writing?

Jan and I spend a couple of months in Paris each year, and that’s when I do the detailed research on scene locations. I make a lot of notes and take a lot of pictures. On this year’s trip we also went to Frankfurt for a short visit to make certain I hadn’t mangled anything too much — the manuscript was done but not beyond correction.

We lived in Frankfurt when we were journalists a long time ago. It’s changed a lot, but the old railroad station is in the same place, and nothing much has changed about Sachsenhausen, where Jeremy takes a long walk on his way to meet the old retired Stasi agent who provides the key that unlocks one very important part of the plot.

I take a lot of pictures. I dictate a lot of notes to my pocket recorder, which Dragon translates into something like English. Those go into Evernote, there to rest until I need them.

The writing itself is done in Scrivener on my MacBook Pro. In Paris, I write in the lovely old Mazarin Library, which is part of the French Institute, right across the street from the Louvre by way of the bridge that used to have uncounted thousands of love locks on its railings. The city took them off out of concern their weight would do permanent damage.

I print the manuscript (many times; the whole thing is still on a shelf above my desk at home, and it’s a stack of paper two feet high). I edit in longhand, and then when I can’t do any more I send it off to my editor, Jen Blood, in Maine. She works it over thoroughly — three times. Then it’s done.
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What’s next for Eddie and the gang?

The third book is about 40% finished. It’s not a sequel, because I think I’ve just about done the story of the missing painting and the criminal gold bug, but it will feature the same cast of characters and be set mainly in Paris, with an opening scene in Miami. It will be a little more of an espionage novel with a touch of techno-thriller. But it’s not done yet, so that could change. Eddie and I are still negotiating the plot.

Thanks a lot John for giving us a sneak peak into your latest work. Congratulations for the fabulous cover image and the marvelous reviews. I am really looking forward to read Last Stop: Paris.

 

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77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected

77-Reasons-Why-Your-Book-Was-Rejected-Nappa-Mike-9781402254123

77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected
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Written by Mike Nappa, available as an e-book and in print version at Amazon.

The author’s experiences as acquisitions editor, marketing copywriter, and literary agent uniquely qualify him to write on this topic.  He is also the author of more than 40 books and has personally received more than 2,000 book rejections during his writing career!

The book is divided into three sections: Editorial, Marketing and Sales Reasons for Rejection. Starting with: “It takes less than a minute to reject your book” (by big publishers that is).  Mike Nappa goes on with all the legitimate and also the silliest reasons your manuscript or book idea might be rejected. Many reasons have nothing to do with the quality of your writing.
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An editor is going to look at your proposal – and if it doesn’t meet certain editorial standards, it will go no farther.  If it passes basic editorial scrutiny, an editor will then consider whether you have done your “marketing” homework — analyzed and defined your audience, established a platform, shown that you know how and why this book will sell.  From there, the editor will need to convince the publisher that they can sell this book, and sell enough to merit the investment in its publication.

Perhaps the clearest message that emerges from this book is that getting published is a lot of work.  The job doesn’t end when you finish writing the last chapter.  Publishers are in the business of selling a product, and it’s your job to convince them that your book will sell, to proof them your author platform and explain how you will market your book.

Or maybe you will decide to author publish.  After all you have to do your book marketing anyway, even if your book is accepted by a commercial publisher.  “Success is the best revenge” 

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $2 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar
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When to Schedule Your Holiday Book Marketing

Book-Marketing.

Even if everyone tries to sell books as holiday gifts… yet marketing your own books too is still worth it.  Here is a last-minute checklist – in case you did not plan your sales campaigns for this year’s holiday season yet.  And if you need support, just find the right program for you that allows you to save time.

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November 27 – Black Friday
THE most important day of the year to run a sales campaign or free promotions. Consumers and readers just expect it on this day!

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November 30 – Cyber Monday
Same as with Black Friday: People expect specials.  The amount of internet users who are shopping online on Cyber Monday is very high.  And they are all looking for specials…  Amazon typically experiences 3 times more traffic to its website on Cyber Monday.

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Christmas Order Deadlines
December 16 – 22 are the shipping deadlines for Amazon and other online retailers, depending on your location and available shipping options.  Promote your print books heavily in mid-December, and remind your readers about the shipping deadlines.  Offer them “bundles” – your print book as a gift and the e-book version for themselves. See our article about book-bundling.

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Thursday, December 24, Christmas Eve
A fantastic benefit of e-books – no shipping costs and time saving! Friends and family of your customers will not know that they have procrastinated : )  Offer your e-book as a last-minute gift for which your customers only need the email of the recipient.

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Saturday, December 26 – Boxing Day
Everyone who received a new eReader for Christmas, a Smartphone or a tablet, wants to use it right away and starts buying books and music to fill them up right after the Christmas holidays.  Many people also receive gift cards for Christmas and start redeeming them for e-books and other entertainment.  Promote your book as a great read for new tablet or e-Reader owners!
Schedule your December book campaigns right away – or get help from us to claim more family or writing time.

10 Instagram Tips for Authors

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I am sure you are already on Pinterest, Google+, YouTube and Flickr to show your book’s cover and scenes from your novel.  The question is: are you also on Instagram?  Why another Social Media site you might ask?  Well, it is one of the easiest platforms to add to your social media mix, it is fast, and it integrates easily into other sites, such as Twitter, so you can show your photos at the major social media sites at once. 

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Instagram is one of the Top Ten most popular smartphone apps with exceptional growth, nearly doubling the numbers of every competitor ahead of it on the list. Instagram has now way over 300 million users!

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More Than Only Your Book’s Cover…
Many possibilities for subtle book promotion, which is a lot less time consuming than other social networking sites. So, what could you post on Instagram?

  1. Post teaser images from your upcoming books.
  2. Reveal some of your scribblings from your Work in Progress.
  3. If you’re giving away an eBook, share a screenshot of the cover.
  4. Reveal “behind the scenes” images of your book signings or talks.
  5. Brag about your book using someone else’s words from a review, a comment, or an email.
  6. Create images with quotes from the book, or share images directly from the book
  7. Share a screenshot of any special sales or discounts for your book as they happen.
  8. Screenshot your five-star reviews and share a snippet of them with a link to your book.
  9. Post photos of some of your to-be-read pile of books giving other authors some promo too.
  10. Create a video from your book signings to boost credibility and authority for yourself as an author
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Be Creative, Start a Photo Contest
Why not ask your readers to shoot nice photo scenes of five or even ten of their friends are reading your book and to send you each single photo?  It means involvement of your book’s audience, engaging friends of your readers, and for sure, spreading the word about your book.  Even more when it includes an attractive first prize… You could for example offer a prize for the photographer and the “model”,  such as an eReader or a small tablet, or a book gift card.  Upload all the images you receive – winner or not – on Instagram and other “image-heavy” Social Media sites.
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Not as Time-Consuming as Other Sites
More and more people are leaving Facebook and Twitter and choose instead Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram. Loading up an image on Instagram takes only seconds, and it is not as time-consuming as other social media sites with similar audience numbers.

As more often you show your books’ cover or short videos on several sites, as more people with recognize your author brand.  There’s a lot to like about Instagram and the potential it has for authors.  It’s another neat way to share your books and to engage further with your followers and readers without spending precious time writing posts.
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Get Practical Tips for Using Instagram:

https://blog.bufferapp.com/instagram-for-business#most

http://brandongaille.com/instagram-profile-optimization-guide-and-cheat-sheet/

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/instagram-for-business-tips/

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If you would like to get a mentor and support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer for three months all this and more for only $179 – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting for writers: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 1,160 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? There is also the “SHARE” button for easy sharing at Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.

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One Month Writing in Normandy, all Expenses Paid…

Any plans for next July?  No, not yet?  What about writing in the bucolic small town of Brittany, Normandy?

Writers-Retreat.
Apply for “The Time & Place Prize”.  It is an international literary award, which is established to provide the two things every writer requires . . . the time and the place to write.  The Submission period for the 2015 Prize ends on November 30!
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The Details:

  • All literary genres considered.
  • Winner(s) selected by independent, third party judges.
  • Submissions limited to 5,000 words.
  • A $25 submission fee will be charged.

The winner of The Time & Place Prize receives a month-long stay in an idyllic cottage, nestled among the menhirs, myths and mists of the Bretagne, France.
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The Lucky Winner Gets:

  • Round-trip airfare to and from Paris, France to the Normandy
  • plus ground transport to and from the cottage
  • Room & board for the month of July in a private cottage in bucolic Brittany, Normandy
  • The cottage is equipped with all the tools a writer needs, including library, computer, internet access,etc. in short: Time and place to work on your ideas

At the “Payment” page and on the “About Us” page are two photos of the cottage in France.
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“The Time & Place Prize is a perfect situation. It doesn’t get any better.”  The 2013 winner was author Jill Patterson.
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About the Grantors:
“The Time and Place Prize is our way of giving back, our way of acknowledging the role luck and perseverance have played in our lives and our way of saying thank you to everyone who has ever attempted to put their ideas onto a sheet of paper.
Our mission is to provide the winner(s) with a personalized writing experience of a lifetime. And we pledge to do our best to create the atmosphere you need to do your best. The prize is not some writers’ camp. It is not a vacation. There are no strings attached. It is simply and profoundly The Time and Place for you to do what you love above all else . . . to write.”
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The Submission Guidelines can be found here: http://www.timeandplaceprize.com/services.html
Good luck!

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If you would like to get a mentor and our support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer for three months all this and more for only $179 – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting / Book Marketing for your success: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

To learn more about professional book marketing and publishing, please read also “Book Marketing on a Shoestring”
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UAVL3LE

Our email newsletters with free insider tips are sent out once a month. To sign up, just go to the form on the right site of each blog post.

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